PADULA: Are the DPH, cannabis commission listening to us?

By Gregg Padula

Thursday

Nov 15, 2018 at 6:51 AM

The past two weeks have been quite disappointing for medical cannabis patients and advocates in the Commonwealth, as the Cannabis Control Commission announced recently it will not revisit or amend the ailing medical cannabis industry until next year.

Since its inception in 2012, the Massachusetts medical cannabis industry has been overseen by the Department of Public Health, or DPH.

Even with the DPH’s oversight, there have been many illegal and immoral cultivation/production tricks used by cultivators in order to appear in compliance, as well as make sure their products test clean for banned chemicals and pesticides. Countless formal complaint letters have been sent to the DPH from former and current medical cannabis employees holding more than enough evidence to have any business, regardless of its industry, shut down forever. As far as I know, not one of our complaints was pursued by the DPH.

In one of three 10-page incident reports I submitted to the DPH from 2016-2017, I offered to take the time to come by their office with a small field guide containing clear photos of what a few of the most serious plant diseases look like. I’d have been more than happy to share my expertise, but per usual, no response.

Grow facilities were even going as far as retesting the same cannabis samples over and over if it failed, as the testing labs are a third party with no obligation to report failed cannabis samples to anyone but the company who brought it in for testing. So, it becomes the responsibility of the actual grow facility to report itself to the DPH

In 2017, the governor assembled the Cannabis Control Commission, or CCC, to oversee the commercial industry rollout. They held public listening sessions where we could all share our testimony regarding what we knew were illegal practices. Finally, we had real people with industry power diligently taking in story after story describing the wild west environment inside some of the grow facilities and dispensaries.

During this same time period, I had the idea of creating an online survey which collected data on specific incident types such as non-compliance with state DPH regulations, unsafe products and employee illness or injury. I left a spot for the employee to write whatever they wanted if compelled to do so. They certainly felt compelled – as several had already tried reaching out to the DPH, only to be met with silence.

The number of completed surveys I received back from cannabis industry employees was significant, and the stories within each range from inhumane to illegal. Aside from submitting the survey results to the CCC during a public listening session last year, I’ve been sitting on it for a long time, as it was the first real data collected from the only individuals with actual insight from inside that sordid work culture, and I wanted to make sure it didn’t end up on Instagram.

There are so many violations within the long paragraphs penned by those concerned enough to write them. Obviously, no employees or employers can be mentioned in here, but some of the milder reports contained statements such as:

- “Medical patients looking for healing are unknowingly exposed to toxic chemicals and mold. The samples sent for testing are hand-picked picked by management so DPH never get what the patients purchase and ingest from the dispensaries.”

- “I emailed the DPH two separate complaints on two different occasions. My attachments included a timeline that documents in detail how I discovered that contaminated cannabis products were knowingly sent off to the dispensaries for sale. To date I have received no response from the DPH.”

These can seem like filler in context to some of the horror stories described page after page. I submitted the results of my survey to the CCC during their recent testimony request period – the last window to speak up before the CCC inherits the badly damaged medical marijuana program from the DPH – which will take years to get back on track.

My hope is that next year the commission will at the very least take a look at some of my findings, and act if they deem it necessary. This is our state, and our industry. Without the patronage of Massachusetts residents, there’d be no industry – don’t forget that as this thing moves forward.

Gregg Padula is an employee of GateHouse Media New England. He has experience in several areas of the cannabis industry, and now serves as an advocate for both patients' and workers’ rights. He can be reached at gpadula@wickedlocal.com.